Memeorandum

June 27, 2014

Partitioning Iraq?

The NY Times contemplates the long-term partition of Iraq with little enthusiasm.

Redrawn Lines Seen as No Cure in Iraq Conflict

By Robert F. Worth

ISTANBUL — Over the past two weeks, the specter that has haunted Iraq since its founding 93 years ago appears to have become a reality: the de facto partition of the country into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish cantons.

With jihadists continuing to entrench their positions across the north and west, and the national army seemingly incapable of mounting a challenge, Americans and even some Iraqis have begun to ask how much blood and treasure it is worth to patch the country back together.

Yes, and not just how much bloood and treasure, but whose?

“At least a third of the country is beyond Baghdad’s control, not counting Kurdistan,” said Zaid al Ali, an Iraqi analyst and the author of “The Struggle for Iraq’s Future.” “But any effort to make that official would likely lead to an even greater disaster — not least because of the many mixed areas of the country, including Baghdad, where blood baths would surely ensue as different groups tried to establish facts on the ground.”

Yes, we would be waxing nostalgic for the India/Pakistan debacle in 1947.

They also allude without explanation to a wild card:

For the most part, Iraqis (with the exception of the Kurds) reject the idea of partition, according to recent interviews and opinion polls taken several years ago. In that sense, Iraq forms a striking contrast with the former Yugoslavia, where militias worked consciously from the start to carve out new and ethnically exclusive national enclaves. The sectarian strain may have led to Iraq’s current impasse, but it coexists with other sources of regional and ideological solidarity, some deeply rooted in history.

What are these uniufying sources? Offhand I would make the disheartening guess that we are talking about hatred of Western colonialism, Western cultural imperialism and hatred of the encroaching Jews, but the Times leaves us hanging.

One expert believes that the problem of governance in this paert of the world is fractal:

“You could split these countries into two or three or four, and you’d have the same practice of power in each of those units,” said Peter Harling, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who spent 15 years living in Iraq and Syria. “The problem is the divisive and autocratic and corrupt way power is practiced, not the borders.”

And the Times notes that the new ISIS caliphate spanning northern Iraq and Syria will be landlocked but will also control a key water resource:

Similar problems would afflict any effort to forge a new Sunni state in Iraq and Syria. For such a state to become sustainable it would need a real economy, and for that, it would require a major city — Aleppo is the only option — and probably a port on the Mediterranean, Mr. Landis said. Negotiating a land corridor that would achieve those goals without endangering the Alawite state would be nearly impossible, he added.

In Iraq, it has long been assumed that the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq, where the major oil fields are, would give the Shiites a tremendous advantage, leaving the Sunnis with only the vast landlocked deserts to the north and west. But northern Iraq also controls both of the country’s major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, which flow southward toward Basra. That could provide one more reason for Mr. Maliki, or his successors, to fight hard for the recapture of the north and west.

As to whether ISIS can avoid past jihadist excesses in the territory it is now trying to govern, Time Will Tell. But the Times offers this:

For all the jihadis’ boasts about founding a new caliphate — or Islamic state — the prospects of building any sort of cohesive or sustainable new Sunni entity in the region are slim. Already, there have been reports of factional battles among the gunmen who captured Mosul two weeks ago. The jihadists’ main partner in the north is a network of Iraqi Baathist former military officers with links to Sufism, an Islamic sect the jihadists view as heretical.

There ought to be room for an Awakening II in which moderate Sunnis ally with "Someone" to retake Sunni Iraq. I have a hard time imaginging the Sunnis would then seek to re-unite with the Shiite majority, and I can't guess who "Someone" might be (maybe Iran?). But at least Sunni Iraq would be led by relative moderates, not insane jihadists.

Jane, there are significant Kurdish minorities in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, all in one essentially contiguous area sometimes called Kurdistan.
All four countries routinely suppress and kill the Kurds who routinely have tried to establish an independent Kurdistan.
The ironic thing is it was Saladin, a Kurd, who saved the Arabic and Turkish bacon [heh] by decisively defeating the Crusaders.

Programs such as Smart on Crime, Now is the Time, and nearly 12 new grant programs take center stage. Meanwhile, law enforcement and national security priorities -- the main mission of the Department -- take a back seat.”

"nearly 12 new grant programs?" That's a weird phrase. If it was 95, you might say "nearly 100", but it's not as though 10 or 11 sound like so much less than 12 that you need to round it up like that.

Wouldn't it be funny if their wealth-related gaffes force Hillary to forego a run, which shuts down the Clinton mob's graft spigot? Not as funny as them losing a $100M civil suit shortly after that, I'll admit.

If Hobby Lobby is correctly decided, and Roberts writes the decision dintinguishing between the Congress's constitutional power to pass ObummerCare, and the POTUS's LACK of power to subvert Congressional power with arbitrary executive rules that infringe on 1st Amendment rights, I am going to get back on my 'Roberts thought this through, horse' and hand out I told you so.

The financial industry has been Clinton’s most frequent sponsor. The Post review showed that Wall Street banks and other financial services firms have hired Clinton for at least 102 appearances and paid him a total of $19.6 million.

The financial industry has been Clinton’s most frequent sponsor. The Post review showed that Wall Street banks and other financial services firms have hired Clinton for at least 102 appearances and paid him a total of $19.6 million.

Goldman Sachs has hired Bill Clinton for eight speeches over the years totaling $1.35 million, many of them client meetings in such locales as Paris, Phoenix, and the South Carolina beach resort of Kiawah Island.

Goldman also has paid Hillary Clinton: She addressed tech entrepreneurs in Arizona last fall and women in finance in New York this year.

"The truth? The truth is not so nice. Obama is a student of Saul Alinsky who understands that America’s white middle class is where the power lies. He not trying to help the middle class. He’s trying to destroy it. Which should be obvious, by now."

He was talking Down he US soccer team's chances with George Stephanoplis, saying we aren't ther yet, we.re a middling team, etc.

It's scary how odd BOzo is. He can't even fake normal. He and Steffie had lots of time and room to talk aboard AF1 since both MN senators declined his ride-along invites. Al Franken's rated 90% likely to win reelection but won't be seen with BOzo in iirc the bluest state in the nation.

Fair enough, TK. But he did say it and it pisses me off because if gives the MFM yet another opportunity to swipe at the party as nothing but warmongers. Oh, sorry. Old, rich, white warmongers who hate everyone else.

In the article this is the qoute: "Part of Republicans' problems—and frankly, to tell you the truth, some in the evangelical Christian movement—I think [they] have appeared too eager for war." This was a stark assessment of his own party.

I find a distinction between "are" and "appeared", and so did they. That is why they used the headline that they did.

Sadly it does appear that Republicans are eager for war when McCain and Co get in front of a mike.

True enough, FY 2014 and 2015 were adopted by a resolutuion in January 2014. Of Course the Next Congress can do anything it wants with Federal BUDGET spending (excluding entitlements and Interest on the debt) in January 2015, subject to POTUS veto.

OT, but why do customer service workers and their telephone lines conspire to be unintelligible? I just got off the 'phone with daddy's employer, where I was trying to figure out how to ship a package overnight and on dry ice. I know the details of packaging, just not how to get it picked up and labeled.

The fellow on the telephone had an accent, there was a lot of background noise from the bullpen where he worked, and the audio quality of the call was just awful. I could understand about every third or fourth word. He kept insisting that he could arrange for pick-up now, but I will have nothing to ship for a week or two.

Finally, I asked him a series of questions that he could answer "yes" or "no." Then I got the information.

Why does customer support get so little attention? Is it good to make customers want to go elsewhere?

If the USA can beat the Belgian Red Devils it will be the biggest upset in soccer since they beat the Brits in 1951.

Belgian has an ineligble player who is terrific but red carded but they also have magic in Hazard, Lukaku and a defense the US has not seen even with Germany. Vincent Kompany is the best fullback in the world.

Big Data as employed in business Dr J. Cost per call dictates outsourcing to an offshore provider. Each rep is evaluated on how many calls they handle and how quickly they get off the phone. The idea is to "close out" your issue in a single call, and do it quickly and cheaply. Completely missed in the analysis: whether they actually deal with your issue (however many calls it takes), and whatever the impact is on customer loyalty and reporting through social media (they may pay Zuckerberg Data Mining for some of this, it never ties to actual customers).

My 2 cents is you need to track time to customer confirmation of a complete answer, then remove as many steps that lengthen time without yielding an answer as you can. If you focus on the service part of customer service, costs will come down and sales will go up.

Re the Harrier, is the cradle something used by the repair crew? I was curious why the pilot had no idea of its existence.

I doubt it, it wouldn't have much utility (jacking is easier and more precise, if it's for ground work) and I had no idea of its existence, either. The old way of handling a gear problem was to raise all of 'em and just land it on the strakes. If done gently, it wouldn't cause any damage at all.

But I never flew the radar variant, and I can see by that landing that it's a lot nose-heavier than the day/night attack (the way the nose fell through after the mains touched). I suspect the cradle was developed after my retirement, and is peculiar to the latest (radar) Harrier variant.

Overall a creditable piece of aviating, but a vertical landing is a fairly easy thing to do, and lineup on the main lubber line is standard anyway. I'd actually have been more surprised had the LSO not been able to talk him onto the thing.

DrJ, you haven't plumbed the depths of customer service until you have run an eBay store.

1. All customer service reps are in the Philippines.
2. They have canned answers in which everything eBay does, no matter how oppressive or nonsensical, is to "help" us.
3. There is no one else to complain to. There is no email address other than a few worthless and defunct ones, and no snail Mail address.mid I wanted to send an irate letter to whichever Silicon Valley bigshot now runs it, I couldn't because I don't even have a zip code for their annoying company.

"Rand Paul is a net negative for any political organization he is associated with."

NK,

I'd have to see decent poll results from his home planet before being able to agree. I must say, his libertarian approach to federalizing the state issue of enfranchising felons is a rather entertaining example of the depth of his grasp of constitutional issues. Tenuous doesn't quite cover the distance.

If you focus on the service part of customer service, costs will come down and sales will go up.

This is why it's a good idea to have call centers in the rural midwest. The unemployment rates are high and cost of living low, so it doesn't cost much more than Bangalore, and nobody takes care of you like middle-aged matrons from the heartland...

Jane,
Of the players in that area it's a no brainer, especially with the Turks threatening to take a dive off the deep end. The Kurds themselves are relatively benign, as is there variant of Islam, relative to the insane neighborhood they inhabit. Now, there are no benign political factions in that area so a free Kurdistan would still win no prizes, but compared to the other nutters they'd be veritable Madisonians.

They're similar to the non-Kurd opposition in Iran; they're relatively pro-west if for no other reason than because they've been pushed around and shot by the crazies for so long.

My favorite customer service line is the one where you get to the end of a long, frustrating call where they can't, won't, don't give a sh@t about solving your problem and then say, "Is there anything else I can help you with today"?

But this becomes a longer term problem for the Republican Party. Its core activists hate its leadership more and more. But its leadership are dependent more and more on large check writers to keep their power. Those large check writers are further and further removed from the interests of both the base of the party and Main Street. So to keep power, the GOP focuses more and more on a smaller and smaller band of puppeteers to keep their marionettes upright.

Senate staffer'

“He’s right,” said the staffer. “Especially when he says the base hates the leadership, which is the number one thing we have to fix as a party, and this makes that 1,000 times worse.”